Le Souffle au Coeur [Dearest Love] [Murmur of the Heart] **** (1971, Lea Massari, Benoît Ferreux, Daniel Gélin, Michel Lonsdale, Ave Ninchi) – Classic Movie Review 4,505

Louis Malle’s 1971 French comedy-drama film Le Souffle au Coeur [Dearest Love] stars Lea Massari as an affectionate Italian-born mother and Benoît Ferreux as her close 14-year-old son, in 1954 Dijon, France.

Writer-director Louis Malle’s tender 1971 middle-class coming-of-age comedy of manners Le Souffle au Coeur [Dearest Love] is set in Dijon, eastern France, in 1954 at the end of the First Indochina War. The film poses a rather delicate question: will the open-minded young teenage boy Laurent (Benoît Ferreux), who has the heart murmur of the title and the need to discover love, sleep with his dominatingly affectionate Italian-born mother, Clara Chevalier (Léa Massari)?

Delicately avoiding the controversy of the subject of incest, Malle examines the pains of growing up in France in 1954 with the loving detail he later brings to Au Revoir les Enfants (1987), poking fun at, but arousing sympathy for his appealing characters. The delightfully natural playing brings out the best in Malle’s elegant, sensitive writing. Lea Massari is wonderfully alluring, making the most of the opportunity of this magnetic character, and Benoît Ferreux does extremely well, natural and convincing as the 14-year-old boy who loves jazz, gets the highest grades, and opposes the war.

Laurent, who enjoys shoplifting (he steals a Charlie Parker album at the beginning of the film) and masturbation, has an unloving gynaecologist father (Daniel Gélin) and two pranksters older brothers, Thomas (Fabien Ferreux) and Marc (Marc Winocourt). Laurent discovers that Clara has a lover and tells his father, who turns him away.

Laurent’s close relationship with his mother ultimately leads to an incestuous liaison at a sanatorium where he is being treated for a heart murmur after catching scarlet fever.

Also in the cast are Daniel Gélin as Charles Chevalier, Michel Lonsdale as Father Henri, Ave Ninchi as Augusta, Fabien Ferreux as Thomas, Jacqueline Chauveau, Marc Winocourt as Marc, Gila von Weitershausen as the prostitute Freda,Micheline Bona as Aunt Claudine, Henri Poirier as Uncle Léonce, Jacques Sereys as Doctor, and Corinne Kersten as Daphné.

In real life Malle as a child shared a hotel room with his mother while on a trip to treat his heart murmur. He recalled: ‘My passion for jazz, my curiosity about literature, the tyranny of my two elder brothers, how they introduced me to sex. This is pretty close to home.’ The rest is fictional, particularly the incest and the humorous, earthy Italian mother, apparently based on a friend’s mother.

Malle uses Charlie Parker’s music for the score.

Lea Massari recalled the incest scene: ‘We shot that scene last and it was a great concern throughout the entire shoot. On the last day Malle said to me, “Do what you want, if it comes out well we’ll keep it, if not we’ll do as I say.” I acted on instinct, loading the fact that the woman was drunk, and the scene stayed as is.’

Italian actress and singer Lea Massari was born Anna Maria Massatani on 30 June 1933 and died on 23 June 2025, aged 91.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4,505, 

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